the silk road: connecting people and cultures · extremely absorbent, meaning it uses color dyes...
TRANSCRIPT
The Silk Road: Connecting People and Cultures
by Richard Kurin
The Silk Road spanned the Asian continent and represented a form of global economy when the known world was
smaller but more difficult to traverse than nowadays. A network of mostly land but also sea trading routes, the Silk
Road stretched from China to Korea and Japan in the east, and connected China through Central Asia to India in
the south and to Turkey and Italy in the west. The Silk Road system has existed for over 2,000 years, with specific
routes changing over time. For millennia, highly valued silk, cotton, wool, glass, jade, lapis lazuli, gold, silver, salt,
spices, tea, herbal medicines, foods, fruits, flowers, horses, musical instruments, and architectural, philosophical,
and religious ideas traveled those routes. The roads themselves were generally in poor condition. Travelers in cara
vans had to brave bleak deserts, high mountains, extreme heat and cold. They had to face bandits and raiders,
imprisonment, starvation, and other forms of deprivation. Those going by sea braved the uncertainties of weather,
poorly constructed ships, and pirates. Yet because the goods and ideas were in great demand and commanded high
prices, courtly rewards, or spiritual benefits, they were worth the trouble of transporting great distances.
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Since the concept of "Seidenstrassen" or "Silk Roads" was
first invented by the German geologist and explorer Baron
Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877, the "Silk Road" has been used
as a metaphor of European and Asian cultural interchange. While
largely commercial, the Silk Road provided the vehicle for all sorts
of creative exchange between tremendously diverse peoples and
cultures.
Given the Silk Road's symbolic meaning of sharing and
exchange, it is somewhat paradoxical that the desire to control its
namesake commodity, silk, was so strong. The ancient Chinese
guarded the secret of silk production for centuries. The Ottoman
Turks and the Persians fought a war over it. The English and
French competed to restrict its markets. But despite such
attempts, silk moved across the planet with remarkable ease and
was a vehicle of cultural creativity wherever it went. The degree
of borrowings and choosing of techniques and patterns, the
invention and discovery of uses and styles is incredible. Every
culture that touched silk added to its adornment of humanity.
And silk turns up everywhere - aboard medieval Viking
ships sailing out of Constantinople and as kerchiefs from India
(bandannas, from bandhana) around the necks of cowboys in the
American West. The terms used for silk reveal its history and
influences. Damask silk, referring to the style of Damascus, Syria,
is actually Chinese in origin. Silk chinoiserie is not Chinese but a
European imitation of Chinese style. Martha Washington wore a
dress of Virginia silk to her husband's inauguration, and Native
Americans learned silk embroidery to decorate traditional apparel.
In the 19th century Paterson, New Jersey, of all places, declared
itself "Silk City."
What is so special about silk? How did it go around the
globe, and connect diverse civilizations for millennia? And what
is the current significance of the Silk Road?
Chinese Silk Cultivation Silk cultivation and production is such an extraordinary process
that it is easy to see why its invention was legendary and its
discovery eluded many who sought its secrets. The original
production of silk in China is often attributed to Fo Xi, the
emperor who initiated the raising of silkworms and the cultivation
of mulberry trees to feed them. Xi Lingshi, the wife of the Yellow
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Emperor whose reign is dated from 2677 to 2597 B. C.E ., is
regarded as the legendary Lady of the Silkworms for having
developed the method for unraveling the cocoons and reeling the
silk filament. Archaeological finds from this period include silk
fabric from the southeast Zhejiang province dated to about
3000 B.C. E . and a silk cocoon from the Yellow River valley in
northern China dated to about 2500 B.C. E . Yet silk cloth frag
ments and a cup carved with a silkworm design from the Yangzi
Valley in southern China dated to about 4000- 5000 B.C. E .
suggest that sericulture, the process of making silk, may have an
earlier origin than suggested by legend.
Many insects from all over the world - and spiders as well
- produce silk. One of the native Chinese varieties of silkworm
with the scientific name Bombyx mori is uniquely suited to the
production of superbly high-quality silk. This silkworm, which is
actually a caterpillar, takes adult form as a blind, flightless moth
that immediately mates, lays about 400 eggs in a four- to six-day
period, and then abruptly dies. The eggs must be kept at a warm
temperature for them to hatch as silkworms or caterpillars. When
they do hatch, they are stacked in layers of trays and given
chopped up leaves of the white mulberry to eat. They eat
throughout the day for four or five weeks, growing to about
10,000 times their original weight. When large enough, a worm
produces a liquid gel through its glands that dries into a thread
like filament, wrapping around the worm and forming a cocoon in
the course of three or four days. The amazing feature of the
Bombyx mori is that its filament, generally in the range of
300- 1,000 yards - and sometimes a mile - long, is very strong
and can be unwrapped. To do this, the cocoon is first boiled. This
kills the pupae inside and dissolves the gum resin or seracin that
holds the cocoon together. Cocoons may then be soaked in warm
water and unwound or be dried for storage, sale, and shipment.
Several filaments are combined to form a silk thread and wound
onto a reel. One ounce of eggs produces worms that require a ton
of leaves to eat, and results in about 12 pounds of raw silk. The
silk threads may be spun together, often with other yarn, dyed,
and woven on looms to make all sorts of products. It takes about
2,000- 3,000 cocoons to make a pound of silk needed for a dress;
about 150 cocoons are needed for a necktie. The Chinese tradi
tionally incubated the eggs during the spring, timing their
hatching as the mulberry trees come to leaf. Sericulture in China
traditionally involved taboos and rituals designed for the health
and abundance of the silkworms. Typically, silk production was
women's work. Currently, some 10 million Chinese are involved
in making raw silk, producing an estimated 60,000 tons annually
- about half of the world's output. Silk is still relatively rare, and
therefore expensive; consider that silk constitutes only 0.2
percent of the world's textile fabric.
There are other types of silkworms and of silk. Indian tussah
silk dates back possibly to 2500 B.C.E. to the Indus Valley civi
lization and is still produced for domestic consumption and
foreign trade in various forms. Since traditional Hindu and Jain
production techniques do not allow for the killing of the pupae in
the cocoon, moths are allowed to hatch, and the resultant fila
ments are shorter and coarser than the Chinese variety. The
ancient Greeks, too, knew of a wild Mediterranean silk moth
whose cocoon could be unraveled to form fiber. The process was
tedious, however, and the result also not up to the quality of
mulberry-fed Bombyx mori.
On this postcard (date unknown), women are shown in costume feeding mulberry leaves to silkworms. DOE Asia: Japan: General : NM 90351 04668700,
courtesy Smithsonian Institution National Anthropological Archives
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Silk has been long thought to be a special type of cloth; it
keeps one cool in the summer and warm in the winter. It is
extremely absorbent, meaning it uses color dyes much more effi
ciently than cotton, wool, or linen. It shimmers. It drapes upon
the body particularly well. Silk is strong enough to be used for
surgical sutures - indeed, by weight it is stronger than steel and
more flexible than nylon. It is also fire and rot resistant. All these
natural characteristics make silk ideal as a form of adornment for
people of importance, for kimonos in Japan and wedding saris in
India, for religious ritual, for burial shrouds in China and to lay
on the graves of Sufis in much of the Muslim world.
Early in Chinese history, silk was used to clothe the
emperor, but eventually it was adopted widely through Chinese
society. Silk proved to be valuable for fishing lines, for the making
of paper, for musical instrument strings. Under the Han dynasty
(206 B.C.E.-220 c.E.), silk became a great trade item, used for
royal gifts and tribute. It also became a generalized medium of
exchange, like gold or money. Chinese farmers paid their taxes in
silk. Civil servants received their salary in silk.
Silk on the Road Evidence of trade in ancient Chinese silk has been found in
archaeological excavations in Central Asian Bactria (currently the
region around Balkh and Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan) dating to
about 500 B.C.E. Strands of silk have been found in ancient Egypt
from about 1000 B.C.E., but these may be of Indian rather than
Chinese origin. Alexander the Great, who ruled much of the
known world from the Mediterranean to India in the late 4th
century B.C.E., wore robes of deep purple-dyed silk. The silk was
probably from China, which the Greeks knew as Seres - the
place where serikos or silk was made - and made optimum use
of the rare and expensive purple dye that was produced by the
Phoenicians of Tyre from the secretions of sea snails. Yet, in the
West, knowledge of silk and its trade were relatively limited. So,
too, in the Far East. Sericulture was carried to Korea by Chinese
immigrants in about 200 B.C.E. Though silk was extant in Japan
at the turn of the millennium, sericulture was not widely known
there until about the 3rd century c.E.
Conventionally, historians refer to three periods of intense
Silk Road trade: 1) from 206 B.C.E. to 220 c.E., between the
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ancient Chinese Han dynasty and Central Asia, extending to
Rome; 2) from about 618 to 907 c.E., between Tang dynasty
China and Central Asia, Byzantium, the Arab Umayyad and
Abbasid empires, the Sasanian Persian Empire, and India, and
coinciding with the expansion of Islam, Buddhism, Assyrian
Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and Judaism into
Central Asia; and 3) during the 13th and 14th centuries, between
China, Central Asia, Persia, India, and early modern Europe,
made possible by Mongol control of most of the Silk Road. Some
would add a modern Silk Road period, beginning in the 19th
century with the «Great Game" - the competition between
Russian and British colonial powers for influence over Central
Asia - and extending through today.
From Han China to Rome In 198 B.C.E., the Han dynasty concluded a treaty with a Central
Asian people, the Xiongnu. The emperor agreed to give his
daughter to the Xiongnu ruler and pay an annual gift in gold and
silk. By the 1st century B.C.E. silk reached Rome, initiating the first
"Silk Road." Pliny, writing about silk, thought it was made from
the down of trees in Seres. It was very popular among the Romans.
People wore rare strips of silk on their clothing and sought more;
they spent increasing amounts of gold and silver, leading to a
shortage in precious metals. Coinciding with the development of
ruling elites and the beginnings of empire, silk was associated with
wealth and power - Julius Caesar entered Rome in triumph
under silk canopies. Over the next three centuries, silk imports
increased, especially with the Pax Romana of the early emperors,
which opened up trade routes in Asia Minor and the Middle East.
As silk came westward, newly invented blown glass, asbestos,
amber, and red coral moved eastward. Despite some warnings
about the silk trade's deleterious consequences, it became a
medium of exchange and tribute, and when in 408 c.E. Alaric the
Visigoth besieged Rome, he demanded and received as ransom
5, 000 pounds of gold and 4, 000 tunics of silk.
(Opposite, above) When silkworm eggs hatch, they are placed on trays or frames, fed for several weeks, and then, when they have grown to about 10,000 times their original weight, they form cocoons. Both of these photos are from Karnataka State, India. One is a close-up of silkworms and cocoons in a specially woven frame; the other shows the full frames. Photos © Jean-Luc Ray, Aga Khan Foundation
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Silk Road Travelers BY JAMES DEUTSCH AND STEPHEN KIDD
While the vast majority of connections along the Silk Road were
made through countless anonymous journeys, several historical trav
elers have become famous for the scope of their discoveries and their
impact on Silk Road cultures.
As China participated in Silk Road trade during the 7th century
with the expansion of the Tang dynasty from its seat in Chang'an
(present-day Xi 'an), the journeys of one traveler helped to alter the reli
gious beliefs of the Tang leadership. A Buddhist monk, Xuanzang left
Chang'an around 629 c.E. in search of greater understanding of
Buddhist religious texts that had been brought to China from Tibet and
India centuries earlier. Xuanzang's quest took him to the Buddhist
center of Dunhuang in western China, across the Takla Makan Desert
to the great Central Asian cities of Bukhara and Samarkand, and then
through present-day Pakistan to the source of Buddhism in India. In
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............. .... ~··· .. ..
India he studied the most difficult Buddhist texts, which he translated
into Chinese and brought back to Chang'an around 6Lt5· On his return,
he persuaded Chinese elites to embrace Buddhism.
An even more renowned traveler, whose name is familiar to any
American child who has ever played the hide-and-seek game of "Marco
Polo," is the legendary Venetian merchant who may have been the first
to travel the entire Silk Road from Italy in the west to China in the east.
Marco Polo (125-'t-132-'t) was more than a treasure-seeking trader; he
claimed to have lived in China for 17 years, primarily in the court of
Kublai Khan, acquiring knowledge that was instrumental in promoting the
cultural exchange of ideas and commodities. His detailed travel accounts
- compiled during the last 20 years of his life - were carefully studied
(albeit sometimes skeptically) by generations of cartographers,
merchants, explorers, and general readers who yearned to better
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comprehend their world.
One year after Marco Polo's death, Muhammad Ibn Batuta (I30Lt
I368?) left his native Morocco to make the customary Islamic
pilgrimage to Mecca. Ibn Batuta could not have known then, however,
that he would spend the next 2it years continually traveling throughout
Asia (particularly China and India), Africa, and the Middle East, before
returning to Morocco in I3Lt9· During this time, he recorded everything
that intrigued him: from political and economic conditions to variations
in human anatomy. Like Marco Polo, Ibn Batuta's reputation rests largely
on the published account of his travels (ca. I3S.ft), which served not only
to illuminate the depth and diversity of human culture, but also to expand
the limited horizons of the medieval European world.
In our own time, when the countries of the Silk Road can be
traversed in a single day, there is another traveler who has begun to
.,
explore the complexity of the Silk Road. Tracing the roots of European
classical instruments to Asia, cellist Yo-Yo Ma was inspired by the
cultural connections made as diverse peoples met along the Silk Road.
In 1998 he founded the Silk Road Project to celebrate and foster the
traditional cultures found along the ancient trade route. Today, fulfilling
this mission, the Project's Silk Road Ensemble crosses the globe
performing both traditional works from Silk Road cultures and new
commissions from composers who hail from Silk Road countries. In
an era of supersonic journeys, Yo-Yo Ma travels in search of lasting
cultural connections.
JAMES DEUTSCH AND STEPHEN KmD, BOTH HOLDERS oF PH.D.'s IN AMERICAN STUDIES
FROM GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, ARE PROGRAM COORDINATORS FOR THE 2002
FoLKLIFE FESTIVAL
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The Tang Silk Road: Connecting Cultures Silk continued to be popular in the Mediterranean region even as
Rome declined. In Byzantium, the eastern successor of the
Roman state, silk purchases accounted for a large drain on the
treasury. In 552 c .E., legend has it that two Assyrian Christian
monks who visited China learned the secret of silk production and
smuggled out silkworms and mulberry seeds in their walking
sticks. They returned to Constantinople, the capital of the
Byzantine Empire, and provided the impetus for the growth of a
local silk industry. Under Emperor Justinian I, Constantinople's
silks were used throughout Europe for religious vestments, rituals,
and aristocratic dress. The Persians, too, acquired knowledge of
silk production; and Damascus became a silk center under Arab
rulers. By the time the second Silk Road developed under the
Tang dynasty ( 618- 907 c.E.) in China, Central Asians had also
learned silk cultivation and developed the famed abr technique of
silk resist dying generally known today by the Indonesian term
ikat. Chinese silks, though, were still in demand for their excep
tionally high quality. The Tang rulers needed horses for their mili
tary. The best horses were in the west, held by the Turkic Uyghurs
and the peoples of the Fergana Valley. The Tang traded silk for
horses, 40 bolts for each pony in the 8th century.
Not only did silk move, but so did designs and motifs as well
as techniques for weaving and embroidering it. The Tang Chinese
developed a satin silk, readily adopted elsewhere. Chinese silk
weaving was influenced by Sogdian (Central Asian), Persian
Sasanian, and Indian patterns and styles. For example, Chinese
weavers adapted the Assyrian tree of life, beaded roundels, and
bearded horsemen on winged horses from the Sasanians, and the
use of gold-wrapped thread, the conch shell, lotus, and endless
knot designs from the Indians. Byzantines were also influenced
by the Persians, weaving the Tree of Life into designs for
European royalty and adopting the Assyrian two-headed eagle as
their symbol. The Egyptian draw loom, adapted for silk weaving,
was brought to Syria, then to Iran and beyond. Japanese weavers
in Nara developed tie-dye and resist processes for kimonos. In
some cases, weavers were uprooted from one city and settled in
another; for example, after the Battle of Talas in 751, Chinese
weavers were taken as prisoners of war to Iran and Mesopotamia.
During the Tang dynasty, cultural exchange based upon silk
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reached its apex. Discoveries of the silk stowed in the Buddhist
caves of Dunhuang in about 1015 c.E. reveal the tremendous rich
ness of silk work of the time, as well as an archaeology of shared
styles of silk weaving and motifs.
The growth of silk as a trade item both stimulated and char
acterized other types of exchanges during the era. Curative herbs,
ideas of astronomy, and even religion also moved along the Silk
Road network. Arabs traveled to India and China, Chinese to
Central Asia, India, and Iran. Buddhism itself was carried along
these roads from India through Central Asia to Tibet, China, and
Japan. Islam was carried by Sufi teachers, and by armies, moving
across the continent from Western Asia into Iran, Central Asia,
and into China and India. Martial arts, sacred arts like callig
raphy, tile making, and painting also traversed these roads. The
Tang capital city of Chang' an, present-day Xi' an, became a
cosmopolitan city- the largest on earth at the time, peopled with
traders from all along the Silk Road, as well as monks, mission
aries, and emissaries from across the continent.
The Mongol Silk Road and Marco Polo Though some new silk styles such as silk tapestry made their way
eastward from Iran to Uyghur Central Asia to China, the
transcontinental exchange of the Silk Road diminished in the later
Middle Ages and through the period of the Christian Crusades in
the Holy Land from 1096 to the mid-1200s. Yet Crusaders,
returning home with Byzantine silks, tapestries, and other spoils,
rekindled European interest in trade with Asia. Moorish influence
in Spain also had an enormous impact. It was through Arab
scholars that Europeans gained access to Indian and Chinese
advances in medicine, chemistry, and mathematics, and also to
ancient Greek and Roman civilizations that had survived in
Arabic translations and commentaries. This flow of knowledge
eventually helped to fuel the Renaissance.
With the Mongol descendants of Genghis ( Chinghis) Khan
in control of Asia from the Black Sea to the Pacific, a third Silk
Road flourished in the 13th and 14th centuries. The emissary of
King Louis IX of France, Willem van Rubruck, visited the court
of the Mongol ruler in 1253, and, seeing the wealth of silks, real
ized that Cathay, or China, was the legendary Seres of Roman
times. The Venetian Marco Polo followed.
Setting out with his uncles in 12 71, Polo traveled across Asia
by land and sea over a period of 24 years. The tales of his travels,
narrated while a prisoner in a Genoa jail cell, spurred broad
European interest in the Silk Road region. He told of the
Mongols, who under Genghis and then Kublai Khan had taken
over China and expanded their dominion across Asia into Central
Asia, India, Iran, and Asia Minor. Polo related fantastic tales of
the lands he had visited, the great sites he had seen, and the vast
treasures of Asia.
The 13th and 14th centuries were characterized by consider
able political, commercial, and religious competition between
kingdoms, markets, and religious groups across Eurasia.
Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus vied for adherents
and institutional support. Conflict between and among the
Mongols, European kingdoms, Arab rulers, the Mamluk Turks,
Hindu chiefdoms, and others made for unstable states, diplo
matic jockeying, alliances, and wars. Yet the Mongols, with their
vast Asian empire skirting the edge of Russia and Eastern
Europe, were, through a mixture of hegemony and brutality, able
to assure a measure of peace within their domains, a Pax
Mongolica. They were also pragmatic and quite tolerant in
several spheres, among them arts and religion. Their Mongolian
capital of Karakorum hosted, for example, 12 Buddhist temples,
two mosques, and a church. The Mongols developed continental
In Bursa, Turkey, silkworm cultivators check cocoons that are about to be auctioned at a bazaar. Photo © Hermine Dreyfuss
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postal and travelers' rest house systems . Kublai Khan welcomed
European, Chinese, Persian, and Arab astronomers and estab
lished an Institute of Muslim Astronomy. He also founded an
Imperial Academy of Medicine, including Indian, Middle
Eastern, Muslim, and Chinese physicians. European, Persian,
Chinese, Arab, Armenian, and Russian traders and missionaries
traveled the Silk Road, and in 1335 a Mongol mission to the pope
at Avignon suggested increased trade and cultural contacts.
During this «third" Silk Road, silk, while still a highly
valued Chinese export, was no longer the primary commodity.
Europeans wanted pearls and gems, spices, precious metals,
medicines, ceramics, carpets, other fabrics, and lacquerware. All
kingdoms needed horses, weapons, and armaments. Besides, silk
production already was known in the Arab world and had spread
to southern Europe. Silk weavers and traders - Arabs,
«Saracens," Jews, and Greeks from Sicily and the eastern
Mediterranean - relocated to new commercial centers in
northern Italy. Italian silk-making eventually became a stellar
Renaissance art in Venice, Florence, Genoa, and Lucca in the
14th and 15th centuries. New stylistic techniques were added, like
alto-e-basso for velvets and brocades, while old motifs, like the
stylized Central Asian pomegranate, took on new life.
Commercial trade and competition was of great importance
by the 15th century with the growth of European cities, guilds,
and royal states. With the decline of Mongol power, control over
trade routes was vital. The motivation behind Portuguese explo
rations of a sea route to India was to secure safer and cheaper
passage of trade goods than by land caravans, which were subject
to either exorbitant protection fees or raiding by enemies. Indeed,
it was the search for this sea route to the East that led Columbus
westward to the «New World." When Vasco da Gama found the
sea route to India and other Europeans · subsequently opened
direct shipping links with China, contact with Central Asia
decreased dramatically.
The Modern Era Trade in silks helped fuel the mercantile transformation of
Western Europe. French King Charles VII, the dukes of
Burgundy, and their successors participated vigorously through
markets in Bruges, Amsterdam, Lyon, and other towns. The prac-
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tice of emulating Asian silk styles was institutionalized in Lyon,
France, with the development of imitative Chinese and Turkish
motifs, chinoiserie and turqueserie respectively. A steady stream of
European travelers and adventurous merchants moved luxury
goods between Europe, the Middle East, Iran, India, and China.
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605- 98), who traversed parts of the
Silk Road on six journeys and witnessed the building of
Versailles, Isfahan, and the Taj Mahal, traded in diamonds and
pearls, was awarded "Oriental" silk robes of honor by the Shah of
Iran and a barony by Louis XIV (for the sale of what later became
the Hope Diamond). The English developed their own silk
industry and tried silk cultivation in Ireland, and even in the New
World. Mulberry trees and silkworms went with settlers to
Jamestown in the early 1600s. Silk cultivation was successful but
only for a time; other attempts followed later in Georgia, among
the 19th-century Harmonists in Pennsylvania, and even among
the Shakers in Kentucky. Still, imported silks showed the long
reach of an international trade.
Silk styles and fashions were led, in Europe, by royalty, but
soon extended to a wealthy merchant class, and were broadened
further as a result of new manufacturing techniques. Silk produc
tion became industrialized in 1804 with the Jacquard loom. This
loom relied upon punched cards to program the complex orches
tration of threads into wonderful patterns; the cards later inspired
the computer punch cards of the mid-20th century. Throughout
the 19th century, chemists developed synthetic dyes. Designers,
who could create one-of-a-kind items for the elite but also
develop mass-produced lines of clothing, furnishings , and other
silk products, set up shop in Paris. Asia was the subject of
romantic allure and fascination by elites of the period. In the early
1800s, England's George IV built his Brighton palace in an Indo
Persian style, decorated it with Chinese furniture, and wore silk
garments, thereby setting a trend, with his friend Beau Brummel,
for men's formal fashion. Declared Empress of India in 1858,
Queen Victoria was feted with grand celebrations and a diamond
jubilee that included "Oriental" durbars or courtly convocations,
replete with marching elephants and parades of Asian troops
adorned in native dress. Parisians held costumed balls, dressed up
as sultans and Asian royalty. Kashmiri and Chinese silk scarves
were a big hit. Jewelers Cartier and Tiffany used Asian gemstones
Polo In its earliest forms, polo dates back more than 2,500 years to the Central Asian steppes; the first recorded game took place in Iran in the
6th century B.C.E., and by the Middle Ages polo was played across the Silk Road from Constantinople to Japan. The game has a number of varia
tions, including, for example, one played by Chinese women during the Tang dynasty 12 centuries ago. American polo is derived from the game
viewed by British soldiers on the northwestern frontier of 19th-century colonial India. There, the game known as buzkashi is a raucous, physical
exercise of competitive horsemanship. Two teams play against each other. The field might be a large meadow, with an area or pit designated as
the "goal." A goat or calf carcass is the "ball." Horsemen from one side must scoop up the carcass, ride around a pole or designated marker,
reverse course, and drop the carcass into the goal. The social purpose may be sport, but the game teaches and encourages excellent horseman
ship skills - precisely those needed to attack caravans, raid towns, and rout opposing forces. Victorian Englishmen then turned this sport into one
that we now think of as very sophisticated and upper class. Polo is a fine example of how meanings and practices can be transformed as they
move across cultures, a wonderful Silk Road story.
Polo and variations on the game have been played along the Silk Road for thousands of years. Pictured here is a 1985 game in Susum, Pakistan. Photo Jean-Luc Ray, Aga Khan Foundation
33
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and imitated Asian decorative styles. Tiffany and Lalique were
designing silk sashes, scarves, and other items. New silk textiles
like chiffons and crepes were developed in France, and silk culti
vation centers sent raw silk to design houses and production
factories to meet demand. This demand extended to the United
States, and raw silk was imported from Japan and dyed using the
soft waters of the Passaic River in Paterson, New Jersey. Paterson
became the U.S. headquarters of silk supply, design, and
furnishing companies.
It was during this Orientalist period that the idea of the Silk
Road as a way of connecting European and Asian culture, history,
and art, was articulated by Baron von Richthofen. In 1786
William Jones had found the links between Sanskrit and Latin,
devising the idea of an Indo-European family of languages.
Throughout the 19th century, European philologists were working
on the relationships between European and Asian languages,
positing such "families" as Uralic and Altaic. European scholars
found common roots in religions and symbols spanning Eurasia
and relating Hinduism and Buddhism to ancient Greco-Roman
mythology, and with Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.
Archaeologists had begun to find links between widely dispersed
civilizations of Egypt, the Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, Iran,
India, and Central Asia. Cultural diffusion, particularly strong in
German and later English social science, became an explanatory
model for the similarities found in widely separated societies, and
an alternative to cultural evolutionary theories. These connections
across cultures, history, and geography still intrigue us today.
Consider, for example, the names of a number of stringed instru
ments with the root tar ("string" in Persian), from the tar itself to
the dotar, dutar, lotar, setar, sitar, qitar, guitarra, and the guitar.
Silk became both a component and a symbol of this cultural
diffusion. It was seen as a valuable index of civilization with
regard to religious ritual, kingship, artistic production, and
commercial activity. Silk stood for the higher things in life. It was
a valuable, traded commodity, as well as a historical medium of
exchange. Silk both epitomized and played a major role in the
Silk turns up everywhere. This Cree caribou hide pouch from Roberval, St. Johns Lake, Hudson Bay, Canada, ca. 1900, is decorated with silk embroidery. Courtesy National Museum of the American Indian Photo by Katherine Fogden
early development of what we now characterize as a global
economic and cultural system. Europeans of the 19th century saw
this new globalism not just as an interesting historical occurrence,
but also as something that resonated with the growing distribu
tion of silk use and manufacturing of the time.
Central Asia and the Silk Road Today In formulating the idea of the Silk Road, Richthofen saw Central
Asia as not only the land bridge between distant civilizations, but
as a source of cultural creativity in its own right. He also saw it as
disputed territory, a region that had served as the crossroads of
political and military influence. Indeed, control over the Silk
Road, particularly its Central Asian link, was serious business for
18th- century colonial powers playing the "Great Game." Both
the Russians and the British vied for control over Afghanistan at
the limit of their territorial aspirations. Rudyard Kipling, the
English colonial writer, set the fictional tale of Kim against this
backdrop, with the hero traveling one of the historical trade routes
along what is now the Afghan-Pakistan frontier and partaking of
what we might today call a multicultural adventure.
Though eclipsed in trade volume by sea routes for several
centuries, Central Asia has in recent times and particularly after
September 11 resumed its historical importance. Its geopolitical
significance has grown as a result of the demise of the Soviet
Union, the need to achieve stable political states in light of
competing interests, and the need to find an appropriate role for
religion, particularly Islam, in civic life. Most recently, the entry of
the United States in Central Asia, fighting the Tali ban and
al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, using bases in Uzbekistan and Pakistan,
and being drawn into disputes over sovereignty in Kashmir,
democracy in Iran, rights for ethnic minorities in western China,
and freedom in Kazakhstan, mark a new development in the
contemporary jockeying for political influence and control.
The nations of the region are trying to build their own post
Soviet and contemporary economies. They are struggling to
develop local markets, industries, and infrastructures, while at the
same time participating in an increasingly globalized world
economy. Some local entrepreneurs seek to rebuild economies
based upon a traditional repertoire of deeply ingrained Silk Road
commercial skills. Among emerging markets are those for recently
discovered oil in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and western China.
Pipelines are being planned and constructed, constituting new
pathways for moving a valuable commodity across the region to
the rest of the world.
New social institutions are being built - universities,
hospitals, and financial systems. Some leaders like the Aga Khan
are encouraging a contemporary renaissance of traditional knowl
edge, architecture, and artistry embedded in Central Asian
history that will allow local citizens the opportunity to flourish.
Famed and beautiful Uzbek ikat weavings are returning to the
world marketplace. Designers from the region are creating their
own distinctive fashions. Ancient musics performed by contem
porary artists are making their way onto world stages. Historical
sites are being restored.
Given the needs in the region, the work to build politically
stable nations that are economically healthy, socially secure, and
culturally confident is of immense scope, and the prognosis far
from certain. But it does seem clear that people in the region stand
the best chance of bettering their lives and those of their children
by reclaiming their place in a transnational, transcultural flow of
goods and ideas exemplified by the historical Silk Road. It is better to connect to the peoples and cultures around them and to
participate in the commerce of nations than to withdraw from
such interchange. By reclaiming the heritage of the Silk Road, the
region may, once again, play an important role in the cultural and
economic life of the global community.
For Further Reading
Elisseeff, Vadime, ed. 2000. The Silk Roads: Highways of Culture and Commerce. New York: Berghahn Books; Paris: UNESCO
Publishing.
Scott, Philippa. 1993. The Book of Silk. London: Thames & Hudson, Ltd.
Whitefield, Susan. 1999. Life Along the Silk Road. Berkeley:
University of California Press
RICHARD KuRIN IS THE DIRECTOR OF THE SMITHSONIAN CENTER FOR
FoLKLIFE AND CuLTURAL HERITAGE AND FIRST WORKED ON THE
fESTIVAL IN I976. HE IS A CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGIST WHO HAS DONE
MUCH OF HIS FIELDWORK IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN. HE IS ALSO THE
AUTHOR OF REFLECTIONS OF A CuLTURE BROKER: A VIEW FROM THE
SMITHSONIAN.
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